Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

He smiled to himself as she went through her undressing routine, a bit more elaborate and drawn out than the last one, with slow gestures and teasing glances. He felt no desire now; it was all gone. He let her continue.

Outside, the hot wind huffed and puffed at the windows. The halter revealed white, droopy breasts, the kind that fold over like envelope flaps. Her eyes were unfocused and dull, as if she were on drugs. She had a large bruise on the outside of her right thigh and a little scar just under her navel. Appendicitis? he wondered. But the appendix was further to the right, wasn’t it? No matter. She stood naked before him finally, and he still felt no desire, only disgust and hatred. It wasn’t the same one who had ruined him, corrupted him, but they were all the same underneath. Whores. They all shared the same tainted, rotten soul. She would do. He let her unbutton his shirt, then he moved her gently away and asked her to lie face down on the bed.

‘Wanna come in from behind, hey, honey?’ she said, and grinned lasciviously, lying down and hugging the pillow.

‘No, that’s not it.’ Walter’s voice felt strange – dry and stuck deep in his chest. ‘That’s not it at all.’

‘S’OK by me.’

Walter slipped the ice pick from his jacket pocket and felt its point cool in his dry hand. He was just about to raise it above his head and plunge into the back of her neck when he heard a sound behind him.

Everything happened so fast. First, the door opened, and Walter saw a huge man blocking the exit, a giant with blond hair hanging over his massive shoulders, a tanned face carved of rock and veins thick as cables snaking down his thick arms. The man, he also noticed, was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt and baggy, flowered pants held up by elastic.

Shit, Walter thought, glancing back at the girl for a second, then at his jacket over the back of a chair, they’re going to rip me off, rob me. That’s what the phone call was about. Just my fucking luck.

But what Walter didn’t really register until it was much too late was that when he turned towards the doorway, he had an ice pick still raised above his head, and the other man had a gun.

Walter never did get a chance to explain. The giant raised his gun and, without a word, fired two shots right into Walter Dimchuk’s angry, corrupt and unlucky heart.

‘I’m not happy with it, laddie,’ said Dr Glendenning, shaking his head. ‘Not happy at all.’

‘So the super told me,’ said Banks. ‘What’s the problem?’

They sat at a dimpled, copper-topped table in the Queen’s Arms, Glendenning over a glass of Glenmorangie and Banks over a pint of Theakston’s. It was a bitterly cold evening in February. Banks was anxious to get home and take Sandra out to dinner as he had promised, but Dr Glendenning had asked for help, and a Home Office pathologist was too important to brush off.

‘One of these?’ Glendenning offered Banks a Senior Service.

Banks grimaced. ‘No. No thanks. I’ll stick with tipped. I’m trying to give up.’

‘Aye,’ said Glendenning, lighting up. ‘Me, too.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘She should never have died,’ the doctor said, ‘but that’s by the way. These things happen.’

‘Who shouldn’t have died?’

‘Oh, sorry. Forgot you didn’t know. Anna, Anna Childers is – was – her name. Admitted to the hospital this morning.’

‘Any reason to suspect a crime?’

‘No-o, not on the surface. That’s why I wanted an informal chat first.’ Rain lashed at the window; the buzz of conversation rose and fell around them.

‘What happened?’ Banks asked.

‘Her boyfriend brought her in at about ten o’clock this morning. He said she’d been up half the night vomiting. They thought it was gastric flu. Dr Gibson treated the symptoms as best he could, but…’ Glendenning shrugged.

‘Cause of death?’

‘Respiratory failure. If she hadn’t suffered from asthma, she might have had a chance. Dr Gibson managed at least to get the convulsions under control. But as for the cause of it all, don’t ask me. I’ve no idea yet. It could have been food poisoning. Or she could have taken something, a suicide attempt. You know how I hate guesswork.’ He looked at his watch and finished his drink. ‘Anyway, I’m off to do the post-mortem now. Should know a bit more after that.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘You’re the copper, laddie. I’ll not tell you your job. All I’ll say is the circumstances are suspicious enough to worry me. Maybe you could talk to the boyfriend?’

Banks took out his notebook. ‘What’s his name and address?’

Glendenning told him and left. Banks sighed and went to the telephone. Sandra wouldn’t like this at all.

Banks pulled up outside Anna Childers’s large semi in south Eastvale, near the big roundabout, and turned off the tape of Furtwängler conducting Beethoven’s Ninth. It was the 1951 live Bayreuth recording, mono but magnificent. The rain was still falling hard, and Banks fancied he could feel the sting of hail against his cheek as he dashed to the door, raincoat collar turned up.

The man who answered his ring, John Billings, looked awful. Normally, Banks guessed, he was a clean-cut, athletic type, at his best on a tennis court, perhaps, or a ski slope, but grief and lack of sleep had turned his skin pale and his features puffy. His shoulders slumped as Banks followed him into the living room, which looked like one of the package designs advertised in the Sunday colour supplements. Banks sat down in a damask-upholstered armchair and shivered.

‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Billings, turning on the gas fire. ‘I didn’t…’

‘It’s understandable,’ Banks said, leaning forward and rubbing his hands.

‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ Billings asked. ‘I mean, the police…?’

‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Banks said. ‘Just some questions.’

‘Yes.’ Billings flopped onto the sofa and crossed his legs. ‘Of course.’

‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ Banks began. ‘I just want to get some idea of how. It all seems a bit of a mystery to the doctors.’

Billings sniffed. ‘You can say that again.’

‘When did Anna start feeling ill?’

‘About four in the morning. She complained of a headache, said she was feeling dizzy. Then she was up and down to the toilet the rest of the night. I thought it was a virus or something. I mean, you don’t go running off to the doctor’s over the least little thing, do you?’

‘But it got worse?’

‘Yes. It just wouldn’t stop.’ He held his face in his hands. Banks heard the hissing of the fire and the pellets of hail against the curtained window. Billings took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. At the end she was bringing up blood, shivering, and she had problems breathing. Then… well, you know what happened.’

‘How long had you known her?’

‘Pardon?’

Banks repeated the question.

‘A couple of years in all, I suppose. But only as a business acquaintance at first. Anna’s a chartered accountant and I run a small consultancy firm. She did some auditing work for us.’

‘That’s how you met her?’

‘Yes.’

Banks looked around at the entertainment centre, the framed Van Gogh print. ‘Who owns the house?’

If Billings was surprised at the question, he didn’t show it. ‘Anna. It was only a temporary arrangement, my living here. I had a flat. I moved out. We were going to get married, buy a house together somewhere in the dale. Helmthorpe, perhaps.’

‘How long had you been going out together?’